Anne Summers AO born 12 March is an Australian writer and columnist, best known as a leading feminist , [1] editor and publisher. Leaving school at 17, Summers left home to take up a position in a bank in Melbourne. She then worked as a bookshop assistant until when she returned to Adelaide, enrolling at the University of Adelaide in in an arts degree in politics and history. After becoming pregnant during a brief relationship in , and refused a referral for a termination by her Adelaide doctor, she arranged an expensive abortion in Melbourne but it was incomplete.
She returned to her doctor in Adelaide and was referred to an Adelaide gynaecologist to complete the abortion safely. She credits this experience as a key influence on her later work on behalf of women. While at university, Summers became a member of the Labor Club, later becoming aligned with the radical student movement and in marching against the Vietnam War. On 24 April [5] she married a fellow student, John Summers, and the couple moved to a remote Aboriginal reserve where he worked as a teacher.
Following an incident at her wedding Summers became estranged from her father, and never returned to her maiden name despite the short life of her marriage. The group held their first national conference in May , at the University of Melbourne, with 70 feminists attending. Moving to Sydney in , Summers and other WLM members squatted in two derelict houses owned by the Anglican Diocese of Sydney , turning them into the Elsie Women's Refuge to provide shelter to women and children who were victims of domestic violence.
Summers received a postgraduate scholarship to do a PhD, which she used to write the book Damned Whores and God's Police which looked at the history of women in Australia. Summers was appointed a political adviser to Labor prime minister Bob Hawke , heading the Office of the Status of Women in the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet from late to early Summers was on the program for three events at the Brisbane Writers Festival in Brisbane , Queensland.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. For the retail company, see Ann Summers. Southern Cross. LXIV South Australia. Retrieved 12 October β via National Library of Australia. The Sydney Morning Herald. Archived from the original on 24 March Retrieved 11 October Archived from the original on 10 April Retrieved 25 October Archived from the original on 21 April Archived from the original on 29 August Retrieved 29 August Tribune New South Wales, Australia.
